


Reach Down

by TheBlindBandit



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Homeworld is Horrible, Pre-Canon, Secret Homeworld Romance, pre-rebellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 17:26:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8762329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBlindBandit/pseuds/TheBlindBandit
Summary: Sneaking around can certainly wear one down.Pearl muses about the risks of their unlikely relationship and Rose puts a newly-discovered power to use.





	

The entire thing was and always had been a fundamentally futile exercise that couldn’t result in anything but grief and shards. What other possible ending could there be for her, one day, when she finally ran out of excuses? When something went wrong, when some court Gem or other saw just a bit too much? She doubted it would be long in coming, too.

And Pearl had always, always been aware of this: sometimes it even felt like it had been the first bit of awareness forced upon her, right along with the sharp spray of cleansing fluid to rinse off the murky remnants of the nacre-layered waters of her creation. There would be survival for her - of a sort and for a while - but the best she could hope for in the long run was-

Well, they’d better make the best of the time that they had, right?

There was a well-known, very clearly set way of how things were done. There were expected places where the worlds of a quartz and a pearl could intersect - and this entire affair was as far away from any of them as possible. Sometimes, as she watched the most illustrious of Homeworld’s elite stroll by her post and further on into the council chambers of the White Court, Pearl wondered what they would think, if they only knew - all these Gems who never spared her a second glance.

Yet somehow very little of this all seemed to actually matter. And not entirely because a pearl’s days were numbered anyway, but because for the first time in her life Pearl had something that felt like it was truly _hers_. Something that wasn’t a cast off or lost or borrowed-stolen trinket formerly belonging to some oblivious high-ranking Gem. And if she shared anything, she shared it with the Gem of her own choice, because she _wanted_ to.

What an odd thought to shape, still: anything for the sake of want on her part. Even odder to say out loud and not feel the creeping fear, the anticipation of a heavy hand coming down to crush her for her insolence and betrayal of core Homeworld values.

Just speaking was exhilarating enough, even if they kept their voices hushed.

And oh, Rose - Rose would probably be reprimanded, and certainly there would be consequences if her sneaking around were to be discovered. But Pearl, well. Pearl would be lucky to find herself consigned to a light fixture, or elevator, or mirror. More likely she’d be quickly disposed of - nobody wanted a malfunctioning, disobedient, _defective_ trinket, and it was made perfectly clear that if a pearl wasn’t wanted, she was as good as nothing.

She wasn’t all that much as it was, in the eyes of most, and she was toeing several lines. But it was easy, so easy, to exist in moments, when _she_ was around. It was so very tempting to forget everything else, to believe each and every wild thing Rose Quartz came up with, to hope for some unimaginably free future in a distant, unmarred place - a system or a planet or a nebula or a forgotten asteroid that wouldn’t, sooner or later, fall into Homeworld’s grasp.

But above all Rose was always deliberately gentle and kind, and her touches were soft - and not with the kind of care that screamed pity for fragility or awe and fear of repercussions for damaging an elite Gem’s property. Filled with reverence not at the beauty of some adornment or finely crafted feature or signature pearl artisan touch, but at the _being_ before her. Her hold, when she placed her arms around Pearl, was enveloping, but never smothering, and it always drowned out the cruel, crowding thoughts of worthlessness or irrelevance.

She was important and precious enough for this, wasn’t she? To be the one, the _only_ one, to listen when Rose whispered _Our secret_.

_ours, ours, ours_

intertwined with

_mine, mine, mine_

Something she could call hers, and something shared. And there were entire _galaxies_ of difference between the way Rose said _my Pearl_ and what was so frequently heard all over Homeworld’s brightest and most exclusive halls.

All the standing around and endless waiting that was part and parcel of a pearl’s function had always felt like torture for her endlessly busy and eager mind. But now it meant whiling away time between meetings with Rose and their precious stolen moments of torn-away pretense, too, and it took all of Pearl’s sense of self-preservation to suppress the frustrated groan that she felt bubbling up her throat.

The council session would be starting soon, she had to remind herself. The giant, sound-proof doors would close and Pearl would be left alone to stand in the hallway, Rose would arrive from behind that one corner she always rounded, and they would have their chance to slip away into the wing’s little-used storage areas. Only, it had been a longer stretch than what they were used to, with Rose away on an important off-planet mission, and with each rotation it was growing harder not to ask _but what if she never comes back?_

The sudden appearance of a shock of bright pink in the drab White Court halls even before the council chamber was fully sealed away was enough to quell that particular set of fears.

Rose Quartz stopped barely a step away, looking as lovely as ever, and all but glowing, very visibly barely keeping herself from picking Pearl up and twirling her around then and there. “I missed you,” she whispered, strained.

“I missed you, too, so much-” And were those _tears_? “Oh, _no_ , Rose, please don’t- please don’t cry, or I’ll be a mess too, and then-”

“It’s all right, Pearl. I’m happy, I promise. Just… relieved, I guess.”

Relief was certainly one word for it. Pearl felt lighter than she could ever remember feeling, Rose’s teary smile alone enough to lift the entire accumulated weight of her lifetime off her shoulders.

“I want to show you something. Something I discovered today, it’s… well, you’ll see.” Rose paused, and Pearl knew the familiar careful affirmation was coming: “But only if you want to.”

“Of course I want to! I want to see-” _everything_. Restraint was hard in Rose’s presence, but they were still out in the open, and Pearl did her best. “Let’s go,” she concluded, as formally as she could manage.

Rose smiled, and took her hand, and _that_ was always a gift unto itself. The dash down the well-memorised corridors was uneventful, and soon enough they found themselves in the high-vaulted storage area they were used to sharing with nothing but stacked containers, forgotten cargo, and dust. It wasn’t the kind of place Pearl would ever have chosen for herself, in the unlikely occurrence of _getting_ a choice - but being there meant a pair of familiar arms was around her again, and suddenly very few things seemed to matter.

“Do you trust me?” Rose murmured from somewhere just above her left shoulder.

“ _Trust you_? Rose, you realise I trust you with my very existence every moment of my life, I- _ROSE_ -”

The ground was suddenly very, very far below Pearl’s helplessly flailing legs, and Rose was _giggling_ \- likely the single most delightful sound Pearl had ever heard.

Rose’s voice went back down to a murmur, befitting the secrecy they liked to think shrouded them in something resembling safety, even if their current state of _floating_ was rather unusual. “I was distracted, you see, while making my way across the primary dock. There was this lovely speeder getting ready for takeoff and I couldn’t help but think- oh, Pearl would _love_ this- and then I pictured you at the controls, with that spark in your eye…”

Pearl couldn’t help letting out a small titter herself, burying her face just under Rose’s chin. Among Rose’s many variously and varyingly outrageous ideas, Pearl thought this one might have been her personal favourite: a ship, just for the two of them, and Pearl masterfully tearing both of them away from Homeworld’s gravitational pull.

Something Rose was now doing a decent enough job of all by herself.

“I suppose I must have tripped over some of the torn-up cabling - the Larimar next to me looked alarmed enough. But imagine my surprise when I just… failed to hit the ground.” Rose was continuing her story, apparently unconcerned, and the fact they were closer to the ceiling than the floor was starting to bother Pearl less and less, too. It felt like one of the safest places she’d ever been. Still, she tightened her arms around Rose’s neck, and was glad to feel Rose’s hold around her grow more secure in return.

It felt so easy and so tempting to stay in their little bubble. But there was a question nagging at her, as time went on, and Pearl finally allowed herself to ask it, no matter how much she hated that she had to. “How… how do we get down?”

“Well, I- you know, I’m not _entirely_ sure yet-”

“Rose,” Pearl hissed, suddenly frantic, “we have to get back soon! If I’m not at my post when they open those doors, they’ll- oh.”

The smile on Rose’s face had turned sad, and evidence of her earlier boundless joy and enthusiasm was mostly gone. “I know,” she replied, subdued, just as her feet touched the ground once again. “This is how.”

“Rose,” Pearl began, hesitantly, one hand on Rose’s arm even as they disentangled themselves from each other. “I’m sorry-”

“No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I can’t afford to be reckless any more than we already are, especially not in ways that endanger _you_. It’s not like floating powers will save anyone from the Diamond Authority.”

Rose sounded more bitter than Pearl had ever witnessed before, and it stung. This wasn’t how she wanted to leave things at all, and who knew when they would even have a chance like this again? No, they both needed something to focus on during the wait, something to hold on to.

“Maybe you can’t float high enough,” Pearl offered tentatively, fingers tracing elaborate patterns on the back of Rose’s hand, “but I’m sure that speeder you saw could do it without too much trouble.”

“Oh? And you’d allow me on board?”

The smile was back - or the beginnings of it, at least - and Pearl felt a small surge of pride. “I’m sure I could be persuaded. After all, how better to impress you with my entirely forbidden and stolen knowledge of astromechanics and piloting?”

“Oh, _Pearl_. You know you don’t have to do anything to impress me. You yourself are entirely enough.”

Pearl closed both her hands around one of Rose’s and tried very hard to make herself believe that as they slowly made their way back through the long white hallways.


End file.
